“It’s goin’ down, I’m ye-llin 'Timberrr,'" Ke$ha’s Southern drawl crackled over the phone. I couldn’t help but find it ironic that this was the hotel hold music for Pusha T, an emcee known less for country hip-hop than serpentine sonic beats and venomous vocal punch lines.
In 1992, Pusha T and his brother, No Malice, formed Clipse with the help of fellow Virginian Pharrell Williams and The Neptunes, producing four full-length albums. The duo's 2006 Hell Hath No Fury is nothing short of a modern classic. Yet following the release of Til the Casket Drops, the brothers announced a hiatus in 2010 in order to more fully pursue solo projects. A year later, Pusha T joined the proverbial 1996 Chicago Bulls of hip-hop: Kanye West’s G.O.O.D Music.
Last year was perhaps one of Pusha T’s most ambitious; in between performing at Coachella and dropping his smash solo debut My Name is My Name, he collaborated with OC pal Marcelo Burlon for his own spin on Marcelo’s County of Milan T-shirt line. Limiting the two shirt styles to 500 pieces each, the super-exclusive collaboration left us wanting way, way more. Fortunately, Pusha T and Marcelo are back with a full blown collection of T-shirts, bandanas, iPhone cases, and shoelaces, sold exclusively as of today in OC stores in New York and Los Angeles. The County of Pusha capsule will also be sold on Pusha T's spring tour through North America and Europe.
So after a brief hoedown, I caught up with Pusha T before his Montreal show last week to talk teaming up with Marcelo, his teenage style icons, and the dopest pieces in his dog’s closet.
Shop OCNY and OCLA for the collection!
Emily Manning: This collaboration is by no means your first foray into fashion: even before working with Marcelo on a smaller T-shirt drop this summer, you launched your own line, Play Cloths, which just celebrated its five-year anniversary. How do you approach these creative projects and what makes this collaboration with Marcelo different from your efforts in the past?
Pusha T: I would say that I try to approach every project with the true consumer in mind. I just want it to be fresh; I want it to be wearable and timeless. Even in doing this with Marcelo, we kept using the term “merch” and it was sort of bothersome to me. "Merch" just has a stigma to it that sort of sounds like it’s for a specific moment in time: you wear it, and that’s it. And I expressed to Marcelo, “Listen, I want it to be forever. I want to put it on every day after my tour.” And as we spoke about it, he was like, “You know what, that is the goal.” Then we came up with the idea of Opening Ceremony just to stamp the idea even further that these are real pieces the consumer needs to have.
“Numbers on the BoarDS” features the line “Givenchy fittin’ like it’s gym clothes.” What were you actually wearing when you were 13? Who was your teenage style icon?
When I was a teenager it was so all about Ralph Lauren and all the little sub-genres he had...
I think Polo Ralph Lauren 1992 was a big one...
Yeah! And like the Snow Beach stuff. There was just so much going on with the line at that time, and even in the hood at that time... I was in Virginia and we
In 1992, Pusha T and his brother, No Malice, formed Clipse with the help of fellow Virginian Pharrell Williams and The Neptunes, producing four full-length albums. The duo's 2006 Hell Hath No Fury is nothing short of a modern classic. Yet following the release of Til the Casket Drops, the brothers announced a hiatus in 2010 in order to more fully pursue solo projects. A year later, Pusha T joined the proverbial 1996 Chicago Bulls of hip-hop: Kanye West’s G.O.O.D Music.
Last year was perhaps one of Pusha T’s most ambitious; in between performing at Coachella and dropping his smash solo debut My Name is My Name, he collaborated with OC pal Marcelo Burlon for his own spin on Marcelo’s County of Milan T-shirt line. Limiting the two shirt styles to 500 pieces each, the super-exclusive collaboration left us wanting way, way more. Fortunately, Pusha T and Marcelo are back with a full blown collection of T-shirts, bandanas, iPhone cases, and shoelaces, sold exclusively as of today in OC stores in New York and Los Angeles. The County of Pusha capsule will also be sold on Pusha T's spring tour through North America and Europe.
So after a brief hoedown, I caught up with Pusha T before his Montreal show last week to talk teaming up with Marcelo, his teenage style icons, and the dopest pieces in his dog’s closet.
Shop OCNY and OCLA for the collection!
Emily Manning: This collaboration is by no means your first foray into fashion: even before working with Marcelo on a smaller T-shirt drop this summer, you launched your own line, Play Cloths, which just celebrated its five-year anniversary. How do you approach these creative projects and what makes this collaboration with Marcelo different from your efforts in the past?
Pusha T: I would say that I try to approach every project with the true consumer in mind. I just want it to be fresh; I want it to be wearable and timeless. Even in doing this with Marcelo, we kept using the term “merch” and it was sort of bothersome to me. "Merch" just has a stigma to it that sort of sounds like it’s for a specific moment in time: you wear it, and that’s it. And I expressed to Marcelo, “Listen, I want it to be forever. I want to put it on every day after my tour.” And as we spoke about it, he was like, “You know what, that is the goal.” Then we came up with the idea of Opening Ceremony just to stamp the idea even further that these are real pieces the consumer needs to have.
“Numbers on the BoarDS” features the line “Givenchy fittin’ like it’s gym clothes.” What were you actually wearing when you were 13? Who was your teenage style icon?
When I was a teenager it was so all about Ralph Lauren and all the little sub-genres he had...
I think Polo Ralph Lauren 1992 was a big one...
Yeah! And like the Snow Beach stuff. There was just so much going on with the line at that time, and even in the hood at that time... I was in Virginia and we